America Perks Up — Coffee Percolator Sesquicentennial
The millions of Americans who for a century and a half have enjoyed well-brewed coffee can direct their gratitude to James H. Nason of Franklin, Massachusetts. He received the nation’s first patent for a coffee percolator on this date in 1865.
The percolator still has a market niche, but since the 1970s has been overtaken by automatic drip coffee makers, and increasingly, the elaborate variants of espresso brewers.
One-point-five million metric tons of coffee and its extracts and preparations are imported annually. The vast majority of that is unroasted coffee, and its import value is about $440 million a month.
Source: Kane’s Famous First Facts, US Census Bureau
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